One of the Haiku featured poets is Charles Trumbull, from New Mexico.
By Vic Fleming
On November 11-12, 2022, for the 26th consecutive year, Hot Springs will serve as host city for a conference devoted to the study and enjoyment of haiku poetry.
The Arkansas Haiku Society and the Haiku Society of America will team up to offer presentations from local, national, and international figures. Charles Trumbull of Santa Fe, New Mexico, and Lee Gurga from Illinois will be the featured poets.
This conference owes its existence to one individual, Howard Lee Kilby of Hot Springs, who may be the only haiku columnist in America (he writes bi-monthly in “Ouachita Life,” a publication of Benton’s Muscadine Press). The term haiku is used to describe all poems that use a three-line 17-syllable structure.
“We piggy-backed the first haiku conference in Hot Springs,” Kilby says, “with the 1997 Arkansas Celebration of the Arts in Poetry.” The year 2020 presented unusual issues, as the Covid-19 Pandemic cast shadows upon such things as in-person attendance. With a little help from his friends and the magic of Zoom technology, the conference went off without a hitch. Via a combination of pre-recording and live streaming, almost 100 attendees tuned in for presentations.
There is no charge to attend this year’s conference, which will be held at the Arlington Resort Hotel & Spa, 239 Central Avenue, from 9 AM-Noon, Friday and Saturday. Each day guests will take a lunch break at World Buffet and resume the conference from 2 PM – 5 PM.
For more information contact hkilby@hotmail.com, or 501-767-6096.
